An admirable MP

Mr Walker rightly said that John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, ‘marches to the beat of a different drum’. More should join him.

Read about his work on issues relating to term-time absence, family law courts and electoral fraudhere.

Jonathan Walker appeared to be unaware of John Hemming’s work as chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, though credit was given for his early warning to parliament that the UK lacked sufficient gas storage facilities – and could actually run out of gas in a cold winter. Later, Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister at the time, admitted the UK’s winter gas supply was “uncomfortably tight”.

His comment on the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil’s report into TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas), co-authored by Shaun Chamberlin, was: “We urgently need to have a system in place to mitigate the economic and social consequences of peak oil. I believe TEQs provide the fairest and most productive way to deal with the oil crisis and to simultaneously guarantee reductions in fossil fuel use to meet climate change targets.”

John Hemming’s role in promoting global environmental welfare, which might well prove to be the most important of all our concerns, deserves far wider recognition.